Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Head of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan says the claims made by de­fence at­tor­ney Criston Williams must first be ver­i­fied be­fore the as­so­ci­a­tion can prop­er­ly com­ment.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia last Fri­day, Williams ac­cused of­fi­cers at Teteron Bar­racks, which was deemed a prison fol­low­ing last year’s State of Emer­gency, of lis­ten­ing in on client/at­tor­ney con­ver­sa­tions. He called on the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and act­ing com­mis­sion­er Hay­den Forde to re­spond to the con­cerns raised.

Khan said such prac­tices, if valid, are con­cern­ing.

“If they are hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with a client in re­la­tion to prepa­ra­tion of the case, the prison of­fi­cer should be out of hear­ing, with­in see­ing dis­tance, but out of hear­ing.

“There is a breach of the con­sti­tu­tion­al right to com­mu­ni­cate with the at­tor­ney, if that is hap­pen­ing. So, first of all, if it’s hap­pen­ing, we con­demn such a thing, but we are not say­ing it’s hap­pen­ing.”

Calls and mes­sages to Forde went unan­swered up to press time.

Mean­while, the De­ten­tion of Per­sons (Dis­ci­pline and Place of De­ten­tion) Di­rec­tions, 2026, set rules for peo­ple de­tained un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026.

The rules were out­lined in a Le­gal No­tice yes­ter­day, which out­lined where de­tainees may be held, their ba­sic en­ti­tle­ments to read­ing ma­te­r­i­al, vis­its and cor­re­spon­dence, and how breach­es of dis­ci­pline are to be han­dled.

Mi­nor breach­es can lead to loss of priv­i­leges or short-term con­fine­ment, while se­ri­ous or re­peat­ed of­fences are re­port­ed to the In­spec­tor of Pris­ons, who may im­pose longer con­fine­ment or le­gal pro­ceed­ings.

The di­rec­tions al­so give de­tainees the right to a hear­ing, ap­peal pun­ish­ments and be vis­it­ed by of­fi­cers, chap­lains or med­ical staff.